Review

Schnellbomber or Wunderbomber. Nicknames notwithstanding, the Junkers Ju 88 remains among World War II's most significant weapons.

Now it's the subject of a superb, 2-part history from Classic – an imprint of Ian Allan Publishing.

Germany's RLM, the author observes, conceived the Schnellbomber concept as a "single aircraft type capable of performing a large number of missions" – bomber, heavy fighter and reconnaissance. Speed and agility would reduce the need for heavy defensive armament. And the resulting design would replace "interim" bomber types "dating from the initial phase of Germany's aerial rearmament" – the Do 17, He 111 and Ju 86.

After introduction and acknowledgements, the author consumes three chapters and 22 pages of background material before reaching the Ju 88 itself. There you'll discover the Ju 88's surprising "American roots", its program contenders, gestation, design, production and variants – successful and stillborn.

With such a famous design, the latter – especially the Ju 288 – proved particularly intriguing. With such failures came ongoing – and progressively desperate – measures to milk more and more from the rapidly aging airframe. And by 1944, for instance, numbered Ju 88 prototypes exceeded an astonishing 100 – "the last numbered Ju 88 prototype," Medcalf reveals, "being V115".

And that probably excludes Mistel configurations and radical power-plant adaptations. A proposed Ju 88 T-1 with turbojets, for instance, anticipated a maximum speed of 738 kph –141 kph faster than a piston-engine T-1, and just 4 kph slower than Arado's Ar 234 B-2.

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